ISLAMABAD, 26 Mar (Online): Just do a simple Google search and you\u2019ll find multiple articles highlighting the health benefits of dark chocolate. Headlines from media outlets \u2014 both obscure and mainstream \u2014 expound upon how healthy the delicious treat can be.<\/p>\n
But just how much of this \u201chealthy\u201d push is the product of somewhat deceiving campaigns to boost chocolate\u2019s image as something more than an indulgence?<\/p>\n
The reality behind benefits of dark chocolate<\/p>\n
Indeed, dark chocolate isn\u2019t all bad.<\/p>\n
The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reports that dark chocolate contains 50 to 90 percent cocoa solids, cocoa butter and sugar. It doesn\u2019t look that great when measured up to its competitors. Those percentages are significantly greater compared to the 10 to 50 percent of cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and some form of milk that comprise milk chocolate.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the good news?
\nCocoa is full of flavanols, chemical compounds found in many vegetables and fruits that have been found to have health benefits, including antioxidant properties that can benefit heart health.<\/p>\n
Flavanols have been shown to encourage the creation nitric oxide within the inner cell lining of blood vessels, which can improve blood flow and lead to lower blood pressure. Beyond this, the Harvard Chan School says that flavanols have been shown to increase people\u2019s insulin sensitivity, suggesting a possible reduction of diabetes risk.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re to believe the hype out there, you\u2019d be ready to accept dark chocolate as a feel-good way to fight off everything from diabetes to a heart attack.<\/p>\n
However, that image is deceiving.
\nVox recently published a detailed article interrogating the prevailing notion of dark chocolate as a miracle \u201csafe food.\u201d In the article, journalist Julia Belluz took a look at 100 Mars-funded (yes, the makers of the popular chocolate bars) health studies that hinted at the health benefits of consuming cocoa- and chocolate-rich food items.<\/p>\n
Belluz quotes New York University Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, emerita, Marion Nestle, PhD, MPH, as saying that companies like Mars \u201cmade a conscious decision to invest in science\u201d in order to make their product seem less like a tasty snack and more like a \u201chealth food.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can now sit there with your (chocolate bar) and say, I\u2019m getting my flavanoids,\u201d Belluz told Vox.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something of a marketing masterstroke that candy companies were able to take a treat your parents might\u2019ve scolded you for having too much of as a child and repackaged it as a fail-safe preventive ailment for serious health problems.<\/p>\n
Vox traces Mars\u2019 efforts back to 1982, when the company behind Snickers and M&M\u2019s set up the Mars Center for Cocoa Health Science, a research arm of the candy company to examine and disseminate, in part, information on the health benefits of cocoa.<\/p>\n
Vox reports that Mars\u2019 scientific initiative \u2014 Mars Symbioscience \u2014 has supported 140-peer-reviewed scientific studies since 2005 to look at the health benefits of cocoa flavanols.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD, 26 Mar (Online): Just do a simple Google search and you\u2019ll find multiple articles highlighting the health benefits of dark chocolate. Headlines from media outlets \u2014 both obscure and mainstream \u2014 expound upon how healthy the delicious treat can be. But just how much […]<\/p>\n
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